Norwegian Society

This article is about a literary society. For the society of Norway, see Norway.

The Norwegian Society (Norske Selskab) was a literary society for Norwegian students in Copenhagen active from 1772 to 1813. Its members included authors, poets and philosophers. The Norwegian Society was formed in 1772 by Ove Gjerløw Meyer. Their meeting place was Madame Juel's Coffeehouse (madame Juels Kaffehus) in the Læderstræde.

It was a gentlemen's club, with the exception of the waitress Karen Bach and the poet Magdalene Sophie Buchholm, and the meetings were lively with speakers, song and discussion, poetry recitation improvisations and relatively significant intakes of punch. The club considered itself culturally conservative and devoted to the rationalistic empirical style of Ludvig Holberg.

The members of the Norwegian Society are often viewed as playing a central role in the wakening of Norwegian patriotic awareness at the close of the 18th century. Many of the poems and plays had patriotic themes. The society was discontinued in 1813 after the battle was won to establish the first Norwegian university, but a new gentlemen's club with the same name started in 1818.

Central members

Painted by Eilif Peterssen in 1892: An evening at the Norwegian Society (En aften i Det norske Selskab). The man with the raised glass in the foreground is Johan Herman Wessel; the man with the red jacket is Johan Nordahl Brun. Behind Wessel is the hostess, Madam Juehl.

• Johannes Ewald (1743–81)
• Johan Nordahl Brun (1745–1816)
• N. K. Bredal
• Magdalene Sophie Buchholm (1758-1825), only female member
• Ove Gjerløw Meyer
• Johan Vibe (1748-1782)
• Søren Monrad
• Niels Treschow (1751–1833)
• Jakob Edvard Colbjørnsen
• Claus Fasting
• Claus_Frimann (1746-1829)
• P. H. Frimann
• Jonas Rein
• Edvard Storm
• Jens Zetlitz
• Johan Herman Wessel (1742–1785)